A GOOD home renovation will not only give you a beautiful new space, but it’ll also add heaps of value to your home should you ever wish to sell it.
That’s something carpenter-turned-property-developer Chris Bye is well versed in, given he added nearly £500,000 in value to a rundown 1970s home in just six months.
The 44-year-old turned a brown brick cottage with weathered decor and shabby fixtures into a beautiful open-plan family home.
He even gutted the original three-bedroom home to make space for an additional bedroom and bathroom.
It’s now a bright and modern home with skylights, a beautiful decking area in the back garden and glamorous fixtures throughout the kitchen and bathrooms.
The renovation added a whopping £490,600 to the property’s value in just five and a half months.
Chris bought the cottage for £374,000 and sold it later for £865,000.
Originally from the UK, he now lives in Sydney and has made a career out of “flipping” homes for profit.
He runs Flipping Homes Australia and enlists the help of a 15-strong team to complete his home transformations.
The company has been active for four years, but for six years before starting it, Chris was doing renovations as a lone wolf.
“I love buying a tired, rundown property and turning it into something modern,” he told Femail.
“The properties we buy most people would never step foot in.
“This 1970s house we bought for our recent reno was in major despair and hadn’t been touched for decades.
“It still had the original kitchen, carpets, curtains… everything!”
Chris is on a mission to educate other people about the effort and money it takes to completely transform a dated property.
He warned the process of renovating can be “very stressful” as there’s “lots of money and risk involved” – but if you make clever calculations, it’s possible to be quids in at the end of it.
“We follow a very strict process to find the right property, make sure it’s under market value and plan exactly what we’re going to do in advance,” Chris added.
“What I like to do is buy properties from the 1970s to mid-1990s.
“Quite often what those houses will have is a formal lounge or dining room.
“People don’t want multiple small rooms in houses anymore – they want open plan living.
Chris’ Top Renovation Tips
Chris Bye knows exactly how to add value to a property when renovating. Here’s his advice…
- Don’t wing it! Plan exactly what your renovation will entail in advance
- Turn clusters of small rooms, like dining or utility rooms, into open-plan living areas
- Add an en suite to the master bedroom
- Utilise social media by following others renovating homes for tips, tricks and knowledge
- Be well aware that renovating a home isn’t an overnight process
- Be prepared for the process to be very stressful and protect your mental health while doing it
- When buying a new home to renovate, only buy one that’s under market value
- Buy tired and rundown properties, ideally ones built from the 1970s to mid-1990s
“So the formal dining room tends to be changed into another bedroom.”
He’s also a big advocate for using social media to follow people sharing renovation journeys.
However, Chris urged renovation hopefuls to “be aware that this is not an overnight process”.
He is imminently launching his Complete Guide to Flipping Homes to “take all the guesswork out of how” to do it.
The guide will even contain advice for buying properties under market value and negotiating good prices.